Saxophone Forum

and reeds

HI i have been playing the alto sax for 5 years and i was wondering if any of you could recomend a mouth piece and a reed for me curently i am using a normal jupiter mouth piece and a 2 and 1/2 vandoren reed

Re: and reeds

Re: and reeds

If I were you I would work your way up strenghts.
A Vandoren 1 1/2 is far too soft for any player.
For classical I play on a vandoren 3 with a very old vintage Selmer mouthpeice that i cant read any of the writing off.
I also play a Yamaha 7C mouthpeice for Jazz.
Now reeds are tricky, I play on vandorens and also on Legere Synthetics,
I reccomend Legere for people that play for ages and love adventuring for reeds cause these are really great!

Re: and reeds

i hate to be a pain about this, but i cant let this one go. from my personal experience i would say, never use synthetic reeds. and that is for one reason, they sound synthetic. they sound fake, and play that way too. i havent had a chance to play on a yamaha jazz mouthpiece, but i wasnt too impressed with their classical. another great jazz brand is berglarson and ottolink, and if your playing alto a meyer hard rubber is great. dont play metal on alto, its too bright and there is no way your tenors and baris can match your brightness,, and then you sound like the fool

Re: and reeds

I understand what you mean about synthetic reeds, they do sound synthetic fibracell, bari.
BUT
Have you ever tried a Legere.
They sound like a perfect cane reed!
So try them and then bag them or dont.
You can't put something that you havent tried down.

Re: and reeds

I haven't tried the Studio cut Legere reeds. The only synthetic reeds I have tried were the Fibracell reeds and I didn't like them at all. I didn't care for the sound at all, and I didn't like the way they feel either. I get the best tone from the unfiled LaVoz or Rico Jazz Select reeds. I have tried the Vandoren ZZ , Java and V16. I like the ZZ the best of the Vandorens, but they don't seem to be nearly as consistant as the LaVoz and Ricos.

Re: and reeds

I haven't tried the Studio cut Legere reeds. The only synthetic reeds I have tried were the Fibracell reeds and I didn't like them at all. I didn't care for the sound at all, and I didn't like the way they feel either. I get the best tone from the unfiled LaVoz or Rico Jazz Select reeds. I have tried the Vandoren ZZ , Java and V16. I like the ZZ the best of the Vandorens, but they don't seem to be nearly as consistant as the LaVoz and Ricos.

Re: and reeds

i hate to start up another little argument, but i would feel bad if i didnt. i have had(this is not just me, everyone i know), have had much better consistency with vandoren zzs than the rico jazz. the jazz slects are fairly goos reeds, but i usually have to throw 1 out and really reshape another. on the vandorens, i usually never throw one out, and i only reshape one every 3 boxes. a guy i know had to throw out his entire last box of jazz slects because they were shot so bad. even if the jazz slect is good, it only lasts one gig before you have to trim it.